World: Banks did not do enough to police FIFA transactions, says agency

A global group of government anti-money-laundering agencies said that financial institutions have not done enough to police suspicious financial activity by officials at football’s global governing body FIFA, and cautioned banks to step up scrutiny.

The warning from the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force came in the wake of last month’s indictment by the U.S. of nine current and former FIFA officials and five business executives on a series of corruption charges, including bribery, money laundering and wire fraud.

With the U.S. investigation continuing to widen, and a separate Swiss probe gearing up into whether there was corruption involved in FIFA’s awarding of the hosting rights to Russia and Qatar for the next football World Cups in 2018 and 2022, the warning will add to banks’ concern about handling certain football accounts for organizations and individuals.